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Goal to keep neighborhood character intact

Plans to downzone portions of Sunnyside and lower Grymes Hill will go to a vote at City Planning on Feb. 24.

The proposal represents an effort by the Clove Lake Civic Association to preserve the hillsides and low-density character of the area roughly bounded by Silver Lake Park, Clove Road, and Howard and Highland avenues.

The goal is to prevent builders from replacing large, one-family homes with denser housing, according to the application filed by the Clove Lake Civic Association. Such development, the group posits, would create serious problems with “parking, noise, safety, run-off, and other property and privacy issues,” put unattractive retaining walls along bulldozed hillsides, and lead to traffic problems on steep and narrow streets.

The proposal would affect 429 developed properties and 10 vacant lots.

Most of the area would be downzoned from R3X or R3-1 to R2, effectively limiting housing construction in the area to single-family, detached residences.

For neighborhoods currently zoned as R3X, the proposal would increase the minimum lot size from 3,325 to 3,800 square feet, and the minimum lot width from 35 to 40 feet.

A small area off of Clove Road between Beverly Avenue and Cheshire Place, now zoned as R3X, would be rezoned as R-32, allowing attached, multi-family housing where 22 such lots already exist.

The proposal also would extend the Special Hillsides Preservation District to the entire area bounded by Clove Road, Howard and Highland avenues and Silver Lake Park.

Community Board 1 expressed its full support of the application with a 23-0 vote (with one abstention).

The proposal also has nearly unanimous support among residents who would be affected, according to MaryAnn McGowan, president of the Clove Lake Civic Association.

“All the feedback we’ve gotten shows that hillside preservation is very important to them,” said Ms. McGowan. “The area is 98 percent developed, so the only way to build up there is to tear down another house. Without Special Hillsides in place, they’d be able to dig into that hillside and build retaining walls.”

The proposal would help keep the area quiet, sedate, affordable and uncrowded, she said.

Realtor George Wonica of Community Board 1 is one of only a few Staten Islanders to have objected to the plan, and his are qualms about “blanket downzoning” in general:

“I’d like to see City Planning require that every person affected by downzoning sign off on it,” he said. “It’s my fundamental belief that your property is your property, and that if there are two households that don’t want [to sign on to a change], they shouldn’t be forced into it.”

Ms. McGowan sees the downzoning as a move that will preserve quality of life and property values in the future. “The fact that someone can be assured that no one’s going to build right on top of them is a big selling point,” she said, “especially in an area with good school districts.”

The proposal was discussed this month at a public hearing at City Planning; following the commission’s vote the proposal will go to City Council.

Tevah Platt covers the North and East shores for the Advance. She may be reached at platt@siadvance.com.